Fallout 4: Alight

Alight Part 5

 Preston was familiar enough with the junk car place. He'd pulled scrap from there himself, but not in a while. You had to be careful in this area, any number of wildlife could turn up, not to mention raiders. He reached the place in about an hour, and walked softly through the underbrush, his eyes watchful.

It was quiet. The birds were flitting in the trees, hidden insects buzzing. The rain had returned, steady, soaking. Nothing was going on.

Then, he began finding the bodies.

There had been huge dogs there, and someone had shot them. Shot them, and then begun to skin and quarter out the meat. No doubt, Rosie had been thinking of Bea's kitchen.

And then, he found the super mutant body. Huge, muscled far beyond any normal man, the skin the greenish color of excessive radiation and questionable ingredients.The thing had been shot through the head. Rosie, no doubt.

Things grew messier. The mutant hadn't been alone. Preston found two more bodies. He found a tree, torn from the ground, and blood flecked everywhere. Cars were rolled over, the earth tilled up in swaths of rage. A battle had happened here.

His heart picked up speed. Any minute now, he'd find her, pummeled to death, or ripped apart. Super mutants ate people, so perhaps he'd find only her rifle, or her shoes.

His chest tightened with grief, and he began to jog, searching the area frantically.

A slight sound caught his attention, and he froze, straining to hear. At first, it was hard to distinguish. The sound of the rain pattering on the old skeletal cars was getting louder as the rain fell harder. Then, he caught it.

It was someone crying.

He held his breath, and followed the sound.

It was coming from.... a bus. Or, from beneath the bus. The vehicle was tipped on its side. He went around, and found a hole, several feet from the bus, hidden by its bulk.

They had endured heavy rains lately, and the soft soil here had apparently given way. Sink holes happened; in a land ravaged by radiation and war, they were more common than anyone liked.

The sobbing was muffled, as if someone was trying to hide the sound. It was coming from the sink hole.

He ran to the edge, dropped to his knees.

The hole yawned away from him, deep, full of stone and loose soil.

Towards the bottom, he saw a small figure. It was very still.

"Rosie?" he called, as quietly as he could.

A pause, then, "Preston!" she cried, her voice full of relief. Then her voice changed to alarm. "Get back from the edge, it's soft, it'll-"

Later, he would look back on what happened next as a good thing. In the moment, however, it was not.

The soil gave way.

One second, he was crouching by the hole, straining to see in the dim light, and the next, he was tumbling headfirst into darkness, stones crashing against his ribs, dirt assailing his mouth and ears, nose and eyes.

He landed in a jumble, heavily, and a rain of rocks and dirt fell on him. He'd tried to see where she was, to avoid landing on her, but seeing at all was impossible.

It took him a second to find his breath, then he scrambled to his knees, searching for her, spitting mud as he went, trying to blink the stinging dirt from his eyes and see.

His hands hit something warm, alive, and he crawled towards her.

As soon as he got close, she grabbed at him, and began to cry. He gathered her up, found that she had a limit to where she could go. Her leg was a tether.